Views like hypatia's (comment above this) are worryingly common. Religion supposedly gives us something to be afraid of, so we should look to reduce it's influence on the world. Or so it's said.

Like my comments above about exclusivism, a criticism of our culture is again in order. People simply don't have much knowledge of history these days. I personally am embarrassed by the lack of historical knowledge I acquired in my schooling days when my parents and grandparents show me their wares. However, I am slowly remedying this by educating myself as I get older.

It is a concern that people like hypatia have views like this. Afraid of religion? If the 20th century taught us anything about religion and it's value in society, it was that a society without religion gives us much more to be afraid of than a relatively religious one. Do the names Mao Zedong and Stalin mean anything to you, Hypatia? What about the word Communism?

Pericles,
Sorry if I upset you, but please just reread my last brief post (actually a long sentence containing “if you like”) So, again, if you like, you can replace there the word “right” with “privilege”. [Yes it is about words, but I would not know how to communicate with you without using words, even if I do not know how to hide behind them ;-))]. This at least does not leave me open to a question whether I accept “the right to offend” as part of what makes our society free/open (I do not, as I made it clear some time ago when discussing the Mohammed caricatures).

>>I did not suggest anywhere that the sermons were "unusually harsh"<<
Neither did I claim you did, since I explicitly added “or whatever word you prefer” to describe what I thought triggered your reaction.

I also expressed a preference for "less temperate outbursts against atheists and atheism" when I wrote “I agree that one can promote one’s own world-view without derogating the alternative, and that this is a feature of civilised discourse that is often sinned against both by some atheist spokespersons and some Christian preachers” (perhaps replace here “world-view” with “position” to make AJP happy).

However this is all general, I could not get the exact text of Jensen’s or Pell’s sermon, only the bids and pieces quoted in the article linked to by Swanton, which I am sure was not an unbiased report about what has been said. The only link to an Easter sermon by Pell, authorised by him, was http://www.sydney.catholic.org.au/people/archbishop/homilies/2010//201044_1424.shtml (I did not try Jensen). Admittedly incomprehensible or meaningless to an atheist, but there is no mention there of the word “atheist”.

As I said, I do not see any point in comparing the utterances of Jensen or Pell and e.g. those of Dawkins or Swanton as to their capacity to upset, but if you insist, please quote a paragraph or claim you object to and I shall attempt a comparison and also try to understand you. (ctd)

(ctd)
As to your questions,
a) this is obviously the purpose of any sermon, but of course, I cannot tell whether at this time it was more successful than at other times;
b) I do not know either; from my own experience there are always people in the pews who get the message of the sermon, and others who wonder why he is making such a fuss about this or that;
c) and d) I do not think this was the intention; it never is, when “preaching to the converted”, i.e. to a closed congregation.

Hypatia--love your choice of names,the name and the character should be more widely known.

A J Philips,
>> One is a faith-based assertion, and the other is a reason-based response to that assertion."<<
I do not know what assertion you exactly have in mind, but if you mean that religious faith is incompatible with a reason-based response (to the questions of human existence?) then this is what you have already stated many times. So I should not have to restate, that there are many people - from the “little old lady in the pew” to renowned philosophers and scientists - who will disagree with you. Of course, not all philosophers and scientists. That is one fact. Another fact is that no kind of reasoning can lead to your (or their) conversion, because faith or lack of it is a state of mind, not a conclusion you can arrive at through a purely rational process.

If I nevertheless keep on responding in detail to your posts I am doing it to (hopefully) clear ambiguities (brought up by you or me or somebody else) not to convert you or anybody or hinder somebody's “growth and learning”. Also, please remember that I grew up in an atheist country, so I have known most of these “reason-based responses” since my school years, and had to find answers to them for myself (and to a large extent also by myself).

I am not forcing these answers on you, and I apologise if it appeared to you as if I were. As they say, life is more complicated than mathematics with its only right, wrong or meaningless answers.

I do not share the outlook of hypatia, but I can understand her when she feels “amazed and amused that we have to have this debate” again.

What on earth makes you think you upset me, George?

>>Sorry if I upset you, but please just reread my last brief post<<

You asked me a question earlier, which I answered. Your subsequent posts appear to be determined to misunderstand that answer, by introducing verbal red herrings.

This does not upset me. It simply makes me very curious. What was it about the question that causes you to make such strenuous efforts to avoid the answer?

Perhaps we should go back to the beginning and start again.

You asked:

>>So could you please spell out for me what, apparently unprecedented, “events of Easter … inevitably erode the status that organized religion occupies in our social structures” and what “consequences” are they supposed to lead to?<<

(We can ignore your interpolation of "unprecedented" as being an unnecessary embellishment.)

My suggestion is that when these priests chose to shift the emphasis of their sermon from reassurance to their faithful, to an outright and direct attack on the faithless, they undermined their position of moral authority over their flock. Coming, as it did, in the middle of an examination of the church's role in some very unsavoury incidents - for which even the Pope himself expressed "shame and sorrow" - it struck me as significantly damaging the relationship between priest and congregation.

In every gradual process there is a tipping point, where the status quo changes permanently from one state to another. In my view, the bare-chested bravado shown by these priests - "c'mon atheists, make my day" - could well prove to be the event that finally pushes organized religion down the slippery slope to irrelevance.

Nothing to do with God(s), or Christianity, or religious beliefs. Just an observation that the idea that ordinary people have some kind of delegated power from a deity, might just be coming to an end.

The consequences? Directly, not much in the short term, I suspect. But in terms of history's longer narrative, I think it is another, quite significant, nail in the coffin of a concept that has long since passed its use-by date.